1 00:00:01,140 --> 00:00:05,310 >> Coming up on Thursday, the Expedition 30 crew will also have a spacewalk, 2 00:00:05,310 --> 00:00:08,640 two Russian crew members Oleg Kononenko and Anton Shkaplerov. 3 00:00:08,640 --> 00:00:12,910 They're going to be stepping outside to conduct a Russian EVA out of the Russian segment 4 00:00:12,910 --> 00:00:14,180 of the International Space Station. 5 00:00:14,180 --> 00:00:18,600 We are pleased to be joined by Glenda Brown who is here inside Mission Control. 6 00:00:18,600 --> 00:00:22,550 She's going to be the Lead Space Walk officer for the Houston Team here inside Mission Control 7 00:00:22,550 --> 00:00:24,990 on Thursday, during all those activities. 8 00:00:24,990 --> 00:00:25,760 So, Glenda, welcome. 9 00:00:25,760 --> 00:00:28,810 First of all, tell us a little bit about what the crew's going to be doing 10 00:00:28,810 --> 00:00:30,680 on Thursday whenever they step outside. 11 00:00:30,680 --> 00:00:35,820 >> Well, they've got a couple of activities, they're on their nominal time line. 12 00:00:35,820 --> 00:00:41,880 The first of which will be move the Strela One from the Pirs' airlock 13 00:00:41,880 --> 00:00:45,650 up to the new air lock for use on future EVAs. 14 00:00:45,650 --> 00:00:49,470 And they'll be using one Strela to move the other Strela. 15 00:00:49,470 --> 00:00:54,200 You can see that coming up here on the video that we're playing. 16 00:00:54,200 --> 00:01:04,590 So the first part of this EVA, they'll egress out of the Pirs' airlock onto the EVA ladder 17 00:01:04,590 --> 00:01:08,380 and then move over to the Strela One. 18 00:01:08,380 --> 00:01:13,280 One crew member gets in position to epic controls, they have a little footplate 19 00:01:13,280 --> 00:01:16,770 that they stand on and then some hand cranks that move it around. 20 00:01:16,770 --> 00:01:20,990 The other crew member gets down at the end effect or end of it, 21 00:01:20,990 --> 00:01:25,790 releases it from some straps that they have that are just holding it in position, 22 00:01:25,790 --> 00:01:33,270 move it around to the Strela Two, which on the, kind of on the other side of the Pirs' airlock. 23 00:01:33,270 --> 00:01:41,350 And once they're translated over to the other side, they begin to release the other one. 24 00:01:42,660 --> 00:01:48,830 Oh, then I guess before they do that, they have an extension boom that goes onto the first one, 25 00:01:48,830 --> 00:01:52,530 that's needed so that it can actually reach around onto the other side. 26 00:01:52,530 --> 00:01:57,900 You can see it, it, it, it telescopes out 27 00:01:57,900 --> 00:02:02,160 and then it has a gimbal mechanism so it can kind of bend around. 28 00:02:02,160 --> 00:02:11,350 Then the one operator bends it around to, to the other Strela, as you can see here in the video. 29 00:02:11,350 --> 00:02:16,120 >> These, these Strela booms are kind of interesting because they, they, they're, 30 00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:17,640 they basically telescope out, right? 31 00:02:17,640 --> 00:02:20,260 And then the crew can use them to move around, it's a little bit different 32 00:02:20,260 --> 00:02:24,500 with how we do things in the U.S. segment, sort of a hand over hand sort of maneuver down, 33 00:02:24,500 --> 00:02:28,200 down the tress segment, things like that, which people have seen during shuttle missions, 34 00:02:28,200 --> 00:02:32,870 but talk about some of the other differences between Russian spacewalks and U.S. spacewalks 35 00:02:32,870 --> 00:02:36,590 in terms of how the crew gets prepared for it, what they do whenever they're outside, you know, 36 00:02:36,590 --> 00:02:38,180 how do you interact with the Russian team. 37 00:02:38,180 --> 00:02:40,270 It's, it's really kind of a different world. 38 00:02:40,270 --> 00:02:44,110 >> It is a different world and it starts right there with the Strela boom, 39 00:02:44,110 --> 00:02:53,800 so that's a hand operated telescoping pole where we have a robotically operated SSRMS, the, 40 00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:58,810 the Canadian robot arm that's on the U.S. segment. 41 00:02:58,810 --> 00:03:03,940 So the crew members on U.S. EVA, which is right on that arm, 42 00:03:03,940 --> 00:03:08,530 while a robot operator inside kind of drives them around. 43 00:03:08,530 --> 00:03:11,160 That's one difference in the actual execution of the EVA. 44 00:03:11,160 --> 00:03:14,960 You mentioned translation, that's a little bit different. 45 00:03:14,960 --> 00:03:20,180 We have a single [inaudible] tether that you anchor down in one, at one point 46 00:03:20,180 --> 00:03:25,070 and then basically reel out to the end of it, translating around wherever you like. 47 00:03:25,070 --> 00:03:30,070 The Russians have been using a different hand over hand technique from the very beginning 48 00:03:30,070 --> 00:03:33,750 of their first spacewalks, just two different techniques of how you do EVA. 49 00:03:33,750 --> 00:03:41,350 You asked about preparation, the preparation for us on these EVAs is completely different 50 00:03:41,350 --> 00:03:46,580 for a U.S. EVA, our team here in Houston puts the whole thing together. 51 00:03:46,580 --> 00:03:51,690 We run it over in the neutral buoyance laboratory, we build the procedures, 52 00:03:51,690 --> 00:03:55,100 train the crew, all of that is done right here in Houston. 53 00:03:55,100 --> 00:04:02,070 For the Russian EVAs, they have a, a similar development process, but they basically have two 54 00:04:02,070 --> 00:04:06,760 or three specialists that develop a short list of tasks that they're going to do. 55 00:04:06,760 --> 00:04:10,450 They'll write their procedures and then they train in the hydro lab. 56 00:04:10,450 --> 00:04:17,130 Then tend to do more skills based training, which is just the very how do you the task part. 57 00:04:17,130 --> 00:04:22,040 They don't train end to end like we do where they start at the airlock and go through all 58 00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:26,750 of their EVA tasks for the day, kind of practicing in the dress rehearsal kind of way. 59 00:04:26,750 --> 00:04:33,810 They just go one individual task [inaudible] We are starting to train some more like that here 60 00:04:33,810 --> 00:04:37,170 on the U.S. side as well in preparation for the maintenance EVAs. 61 00:04:37,170 --> 00:04:41,550 We never know what's going to go wrong on the station, so we have to prepare 62 00:04:41,550 --> 00:04:44,640 in a skills based way all those various tasks. 63 00:04:44,640 --> 00:04:47,090 >> Let's talk about the suits themselves and for those of you who are going 64 00:04:47,090 --> 00:04:49,030 to be watching tomorrow, we're actually going to have a live shot 65 00:04:49,030 --> 00:04:52,040 from the space [inaudible] lab here at the Johnson Space Center where we have one 66 00:04:52,040 --> 00:04:55,610 of the Orlon space suits, which is what the crew will be using on Thursday. 67 00:04:55,610 --> 00:04:58,140 They're quite different than the EMUs. 68 00:04:58,140 --> 00:05:01,150 The -- or the, the white space suits that people know from the U.S. side, 69 00:05:01,150 --> 00:05:04,920 but they're at a different pressure too, so the U.S., you know, the U.S. suits are down at 70 00:05:04,920 --> 00:05:07,360 like a 4.3 or something like that, PSI and, 71 00:05:07,360 --> 00:05:09,360 and the Russian suits are a little bit higher, right? 72 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:14,300 >> That's right, Josh, and what that does for the crew member on our side 73 00:05:14,300 --> 00:05:17,780 when we use the lower suit pressure, the good part of that is 74 00:05:17,780 --> 00:05:21,130 that it's less resistance in the suit, so... 75 00:05:21,130 --> 00:05:21,440 >> Easy to use. 76 00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:21,620 Yeah. 77 00:05:25,720 --> 00:05:31,180 compressing the hand is a little bit easier in the gloves, it's not just all blown up and, and, 78 00:05:31,180 --> 00:05:38,330 and stiff and hard at 8 PSI, like the Russian suit, it's at 4 PSI, so a little easier to move. 79 00:05:38,330 --> 00:05:40,760 So that's one difference with the pressure. 80 00:05:40,760 --> 00:05:48,150 On the other side of things because they're at a higher pressure, they, 81 00:05:48,150 --> 00:05:50,670 they don't have to pre-breathe as long, so... 82 00:05:50,670 --> 00:05:53,690 >> Which has to get their bodies ready to get all the nitrogen out of their blood [inaudible] 83 00:05:53,690 --> 00:05:55,510 >> Right. To prevent the bends. 84 00:05:55,510 --> 00:05:57,940 >> Right. So, you know, people saw that during the shuttle missions and, 85 00:05:57,940 --> 00:06:01,670 and station space walks that they would camp out, used to camp out inside the Quest airlock 86 00:06:01,670 --> 00:06:03,250 and now we kind of changed that little bit. 87 00:06:03,250 --> 00:06:05,060 We do sort of an exercise [inaudible] 88 00:06:05,060 --> 00:06:06,300 >> Right. Right. 89 00:06:06,300 --> 00:06:13,220 So, we used to bring the whole -- let's see on the shuttle world long ago, 90 00:06:13,220 --> 00:06:18,990 we brought the whole cabin down to 10.2 PSI, then we went over to the space station 91 00:06:18,990 --> 00:06:22,580 and we were able to just depress the equipment lock and the crew lock 92 00:06:22,580 --> 00:06:28,910 down to 10.2 PSI overnight and that would allow us to pre-breathe at that lower pressure, 93 00:06:28,910 --> 00:06:32,240 purging the nitrogen from the tissues to prevent bends. 94 00:06:32,240 --> 00:06:40,300 And then recently, we've moved to the exercise protocol or the aisle protocol, 95 00:06:40,300 --> 00:06:48,130 it's in suit light exercise and that allows us to pre-breathe in the suit for a short period 96 00:06:48,130 --> 00:06:52,940 of time, about an hour or so in addition to what we had been doing. 97 00:06:52,940 --> 00:06:58,110 And, and the pressure in the suited portion of it, and they just move around a little bit 98 00:06:58,110 --> 00:07:02,680 and that helps purge those, purge the nitrogen from their systems as well. 99 00:07:02,680 --> 00:07:05,260 So that's how we do it on the U.S. side, but on the Russian side, 100 00:07:05,260 --> 00:07:09,310 because it's a higher suit pressure, they just basically bring the suit pressure down, 101 00:07:09,310 --> 00:07:14,440 ingress the suits, bring the suit pressure down to their nominal operating pressure, 102 00:07:14,440 --> 00:07:17,780 pre-breathe there for just a little while and basically as long as it takes them 103 00:07:17,780 --> 00:07:20,830 to do their other operations to get out the door and then they're out. 104 00:07:20,830 --> 00:07:20,900 [ Inaudible ] 105 00:07:20,900 --> 00:07:22,490 >> Done. It's impressive. 106 00:07:22,490 --> 00:07:26,200 So everything has checked out today, the Orlon suits, they, they [inaudible] them on and, 107 00:07:26,200 --> 00:07:29,690 and made sure everything was ready to go and everything was okay from I heard, right? 108 00:07:29,690 --> 00:07:32,000 >> Yeah, we'll call that a dress rehearsal. 109 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:36,420 They started about 2 a.m. local Houston time. 110 00:07:36,420 --> 00:07:42,350 They started checking out all of their airlock systems and then got into the space suits 111 00:07:42,350 --> 00:07:44,380 and tried, tried the suit sizing. 112 00:07:44,380 --> 00:07:45,950 They had to make a few adjustments. 113 00:07:45,950 --> 00:07:49,220 The way their suit adjust in size is different than ours. 114 00:07:49,220 --> 00:07:53,660 Ours has a bunch of different components that we size pretty specifically to the crew member. 115 00:07:53,660 --> 00:08:02,490 For the Russians, they have kind of a one size fits all, and they have some cam adjustments 116 00:08:02,490 --> 00:08:09,300 and some arm and leg length adjustments, basically think of it as a big cinch cord 117 00:08:09,300 --> 00:08:13,400 that you pull to make the legs shorter or the arms shorter. 118 00:08:13,400 --> 00:08:15,460 And they have to make some of those adjustments. 119 00:08:15,460 --> 00:08:19,550 They do that in their dry run, which is what they were doing today. 120 00:08:19,550 --> 00:08:23,930 They got all that suit sizing taken care of, it took one crew member a little bit longer 121 00:08:23,930 --> 00:08:28,390 than the other one, Oleg has some more experience than Anton does. 122 00:08:28,390 --> 00:08:31,570 So it took them -- him just a little longer to get his done. 123 00:08:31,570 --> 00:08:35,310 And then after that, they actually practiced some translations while they're 124 00:08:35,310 --> 00:08:36,110 in their airlock. 125 00:08:36,110 --> 00:08:40,490 It's a pretty good size airlock so they can move around quite a bit, give them a chance 126 00:08:40,490 --> 00:08:45,100 to acclimated before they actually go outside to do their spacewalk. 127 00:08:45,100 --> 00:08:46,870 They checked some of the tools, some of the tools 128 00:08:46,870 --> 00:08:49,680 that are being provided by -- from the U.S. side. 129 00:08:49,680 --> 00:08:54,120 They're using some of our tools, some tethers and stuff that give them some added capability 130 00:08:54,120 --> 00:08:56,490 that they don't have on their own tools. 131 00:08:56,490 --> 00:09:01,000 So they checked out some of those and all of that worked really well. 132 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:02,530 >> Well, I think everything's set for Thursday. 133 00:09:02,530 --> 00:09:06,460 If you're going to be watching live with us, we'll have our live coverage at about -- 134 00:09:06,460 --> 00:09:10,380 a little after 7:45 a.m. Central Time, 8:45 a.m. Eastern Time, 135 00:09:10,380 --> 00:09:12,780 and the spacewalk will get kicked off about 30 minutes later 136 00:09:12,780 --> 00:09:16,570 at 8:15 a.m. Central Time, 9:15 a.m. Easter time. 137 00:09:16,570 --> 00:09:20,060 It will run about five and a half, six hours if everything goes according to plan. 138 00:09:20,060 --> 00:09:21,670 So, Glenda, thank you very much for coming by.